Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers Review

Howdy. I'm back to talking about Haikyuu!! again. I'm still sort of obsessed with the show, and every time I think about it, I just start analyzing the characters and the games all over again. I am also really into the intro songs and have a Spotify playlist of them so that I can hype myself up for workouts or to write fanfic. I'm still totally inspired by the animation, which is why this blog post will be littered with little sketchbook doodles of all of the Karasuno volleyball club members. But the manga... Well, to be honest, I wasn't really that satisfied with it. Please be warned that the rest of this post will be chock full of spoilers for both the anime and manga, so proceed at your own risk.

Season four of the anime leaves off with Karasuno having beaten Inarizaki and its star players, the Miya twins. Their next match up will be with Nekoma, their long established rivals. This game was really hyped up. Nekoma and Karasuno have a history, sure, but through practice games and training camps, both their bonds and their rivalry have deepened. So, this game, in many senses, is kind of the climax of the series. Everything has been building to that moment. Unfortunately, I find Nekoma to be kind of a boring team...

Nekoma is a team that doesn't have any flashy players, and as a result, they never really pull off any remarkably crazy plays. That's not to say they aren't talented. They're just super precise. But that kind of means that they aren't that fun to watch. They're a great foil to Karasuno, who pull off miracle plays and who specialize in explosive offensive power. But consider what that means for Nekoma. They "connect" their plays with a lot of technique and have a great defense. Not exactly the most exciting thing.

The game that Karasuno plays against Nekoma isn't devoid of special or memorable moments by any means. And some of the manga panels were great, especially the more symbolic and artistic ones. There's a moment where Hinata metaphorically breaks free of a bird cage in which Kenma has him trapped. There's another moment where the stadium fades away, and you realize they're having as much fun together as they would during a practice game, which also reminds you how long this game has been waiting to be played. These are beautiful, emotional, rewarding moments. Sadly, these moments are overshadowed by a very anticlimactic finish. Essentially, Nekoma gives up the final point when Kenma's fingers slip on the ball due to sweat. *Yawn*

The moments following the game are touching and whatnot, but the game itself was not that fun to read. Perhaps once season 5 of the anime is complete, it will be more exciting, since it will actually be animated. There will be the passionate and talented actors providing the voices, there will be the swelling musical score. No doubt, these elements will help the Nekoma game come to life. But I have my doubts that it will be more exciting than season three's game against Shiratorizawa.

Following the Nekoma game, Karasuno faces a team called Kamomedai. There aren't really any super memorable characters on the team, save their Hoshiumi, another "small giant" type player. The game is special, as the original Tiny Giant who inspired Hinata to play is in attendance. Through this, Hinata learns that he doesn't want to live in his shadow anymore and decides he wants to be his own player, not another like him. And it's really impactful to watch Hinata truly make volleyball his own.

The game has its moments and is definitely a lot more exciting than the Nekoma game. However, its ending is perhaps even less satisfying. Karasuno loses and their run at the national tournament comes to a close. Why? Because Hinata fell ill and Tsukishima got a leg cramp. Is it a realistic conclusion to their volleyball season? Absolutely. Karasuno doesn't have a deep bench. They rely totally on their starters. But is it a satisfying conclusion? Absolutely not. I want to know, would Karasuno have beaten them, were it not for illness and injury? We don't get to find out. It wasn't even that sad honestly. I just felt numb as I read it.

What happens next for Karasuno is a whirlwind. The third years graduate, and we find out how well Hinata, Kageyama, Tsukishima, and Yamaguchi do in their second and third years of the high school volleyball club. It happens really fast. We don't get to see any of their new under classmen. We learn that Yamaguchi became their captain in the third year, which is cool, but it's just a brief moment. We don't get to know what kind of leader he was, what kind of senpais they all became. I understand that covering the next two years of Karasuno's VBC would be unrealistic, perhaps tedious, and probably even repetitive. But in a way, I wish we could have just ended there.

It's sad to think of our favorite characters moving away from each other due to life and adulthood. And that is what the final arc of Haikyuu!! gives us. After graduation, Hinata moves to Brazil to pursue a career in beach volleyball for two years. This improves his balance and jumping power even more. While he's there, he runs into Oikawa, an old adversary from Aoba Johsai high school, who we learn plays for Argentina. We find out that Kageyama is playing professionally back in Japan. And really, this whole Brazil sequence is pretty boring. We're introduced to characters that we don't have enough time to care about, and the whole time we're just thinking, "Can we please get back to Japan?"

We do return to Japan after Hinata's two years in Brazil are over. We learn that he likewise has joined a professional team. There's a big game that covers several chapters which features Hinata's professional team playing against Kageyama's. The game is not bad at all, and we get to see how Hinata and Kageyama play with different teammates, including past rivals. And it's a great parallel to the opening of the story, which was when Hinata played against Kageyama in middle school. In many ways, it's the rematch we've been waiting for. Sadly, I just couldn't invest in the game that much.

I was too distracted by the parade of every major and minor character in the Haikyuu!! universe showing up to watch the game. It was fun to learn that Tsukishima is still playing volleyball professionally, though in a lesser league. But a lot of the career paths chosen by the old Karasuno team seemed weird or out of place. For the most part, I was just happy to see them, though, after they were missing from the time spent on Hinata's beach volleyball foray. However, some of the characters highlighted were so insignificant that I couldn't be sure where they were from. I think there were some female managers from the Tokyo teams featured? I honestly didn't know who they were.

There were also some unneeded flashbacks. Like we got to see some of Kageyama's childhood. I couldn't help but think it was a little late for that. I already care about Kageyama. Does he really need a flashback? We learn that he has an older sister. It sort of feels like useless trivia.

After the game ends at the fourth set, we get another jump forward in time. We see that Kageyama and Hinata are playing on the Olympic team together, along with other players we know from the series. They're going to play against Oikawa and Argentina. We don't get to see how the game turns out. And we get to see yet another parade of characters show up to react to their old teammates playing for Japan. There's really no plot to this. It's like a curtain call, almost. We don't see what the outcome of this game is.

The final page of the manga shows us that Kageyama and Hinata are about to face off again. They are both playing for European teams and are as determined as ever to defeat each other, showing that their bond as friends and rivals will continue forever. It's a sweet sentiment, but it has a sort of hollow feeling.

I know I'm not alone in my feeling that the ending of the Haikyuu!! manga felt off somehow. It felt almost like a different story, a different manga. Seeing Hinata and the others as adults was...weird. It was nice to see the ways that they developed as players and as people, but it was also sad. In many ways, they became too different and too grown up and it all happened so fast! I feel like it was rushed in some ways, but it dragged on in others.

I don't know what I think would have been a better way to end the series. Perhaps we see them lose at nationals, then instead of laying out the next eight or so years of Hinata's life, we just let it end there. Though, that would leave some loose ends. Like seeing Oikawa get his chance at revenge against Ushijima. Or seeing Hinata and Kageyama have their long awaited rematch. But these things could be accomplished in other ways, perhaps. Maybe we could have had one chapter of epilogue, rather than than the long, strange trip through Brazil, Japanese professional volleyball, the Tokyo Olympics, and European leagues.

In some ways, it might have been nicer to leave certain things up to the imagination. Like who would become captain during their third year? Or what would Nishinoya become as a grown up? Would Kiyoko come around to Tanaka? Would Yamaguchi really be the only one of their class to stop playing volleyball after graduation? But in some ways, it was nice to see that they still felt connected to each other, even after all those years, so I'm happy we got to see those things.

I think a long running series like Haikyuu!! doesn't have a clear cut answer for how it should end. I think that the author probably felt an obligation to the fans to give them certain answers and to give closure about their favorite characters. I think that the parade of side characters probably satisfied the readers who had become attached over many years of readership. I think that if it had ended right after the national tournament, some people would say it felt abrupt. I think most people wouldn't quite be ready to say goodbye. No matter what, when a series you love ends, you will feel sad. And that's what I felt as I read the final chapters. I would have been sad no matter how it ended.

I think it's a real testament to Haikyuu!!'s quality that I'm still this obsessed with it, even though I didn't care for the final act. I've not yet found another anime to quite fill the volleyball-shaped void I have in my life right now. I've enjoyed other shows, other anime, but right now, I just keep going back to Haikyuu!!

(A note about the art: I drew Hinata and Kageyama first, and incidentally, I like those drawings the least. Asahi turned out really, well, imo. And I love Tsukishima too. I think his face turned out the best. The style I chose, with the cell-style shading and black cross-hatching, was supposed to be reminiscent of the anime, but I actually find the black a bit too harsh, so I regret using it. But I wanted this series of drawings to be cohesive, so I continued doing it. I tried to be less heavy-handed, with mixed success. These drawings are featured in my planning binder, so they're very personal, but I like them enough that I figure I'd share!)